You're Not Putting That Up There

“What? I don’t believe it!” “41 years? You’re kidding?” “You don’t look old enough; well, Anne doesn’t.” Just some of the comments we received (I can’t repeat some of the others) when telling people Anne and I have now been married for two score and one years.

We celebrated with a lovely meal at a restaurant in a nearby village/town (when does a village become a town?). It’s not that far away but we thought we’d make the most of it and stay overnight at a nearby hostelry. I could tell the age of the pub by the number of ceiling beams I walked into. In fact I was so pre-occupied with avoiding the large beam in our bedroom that I banged my head on the hobbit-sized doorframe instead.

The restaurant was only across the road, so easy to waddle back after 3 courses and a bottle of wine. We both thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, although Anne had to endure watching me demolish my rum baba dessert (remember those?). I only ordered it so that we could wind the years back to the 70s, when rum babas, black forest gateau and Benny Hill were in fashion. Anne would be wearing her smock dress and I’d be in a flowery shirt and flared trousers. In those days we’d be eating a slap-up meal of prawn cocktail, Berni Inn steak (cooked medium), followed by a dessert of rock-hard ice cream in a plastic tub, all washed down with a glass of Blue Nun. Ah, the good old days.